The Texas police officer who was seen body-slamming a middle school girl—in a video that's been watched over 2 million times, might I add—has been fired.
San Antonio school officials made the announcement on Monday reportsNBC News. A statement from the San Antonio Independent School District said Rhodes Middle School decided to: "terminate the employment of Officer Joshua Kehm, effective immediately." However, the investigation of the incident, said to have taken place on March 29, is ongoing.
District superintendent Pedro Martinez said in a statement that he believes a "physical response" is sometimes inevitable in certain situations, but in this one involving 12-year-old Janissa Valdez, he called Kehm's response "absolutely unwarranted."
He added, "We want to be clear that we will not tolerate this behavior."
In the hard to watch video Kehm is seen body-slamming Valdez, a sixth grader, face first into the concrete ground before arresting her while she's down.
According to Martinez, Kehm's report of the incident, in addition to being late, was "inconsistent" to what can be seen in the video. Martinez said this was in violation of the district police department's "general operating procedures."
NBC Newsreports Valdez has since said she wasn't actually going to fight. "I was going up to her to tell her let's go somewhere else so we could talk, but that's when the cop thought I was going at her," said Valdez. "I wasn't going to do anything."
The district attorney's office will reportedly conduct a separate investigation after the school district's own investigation.
